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Dancers take over St. Paul City Ballet to keep company on its feet

By Emily Monganemongan@pioneerpress.com

Posted:
12/01/2013 12:01:00 AM CST

Updated:
12/02/2013 10:09:55 AM CST

The professional dancers in the St. Paul City Ballet's holiday production "Clara's Dream" often pull double or triple duty, dancing multiple roles in the one-hour performance. The dancers pull extra duty offstage as well, covering the administrative roles as part of the company's rare artist-led business model.

When the St. Paul City Ballet announced the 2013-14 performance season was in jeopardy, dancer Shannon Corbett gathered a group of dancers to make a pitch to the board. Armed with plans detailing their ideas for the season and a budget that would make it possible, the company proposed a bold idea: Dancers would step into the administrative roles, overseeing the direction of the ballet in addition to the work they do in the studio.

"Being artist-led makes it really easy for us to kind of have control, and have a little more artistic freedom, in that sense," said Jarod Boltjes, who joined the St. Paul City Ballet this season and serves as the production coordinator, booking performance spaces for the company.

Dancer Zoe Henrot was nominated by the company to be the interim artistic director, overseeing much of the choreography for the season.

"It's kind of a blessing. Because we are artist-led, we can sit down and be like 'What part has someone always been dying to do, but never has had the chance?' " Henrot said. "It gives us a lot of flexibility in what we want to put on stage."

The company puts on a free performance at Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul on the second Tuesday of each month to give audiences a teaser of upcoming performances. The dancers walked in the 2013 Twin Cities Pride parade, and the company maintains an active social media presence to stay accessible to their fans. This community outreach is crucial, Henrot said, because of the artist-led business model's reliance on community support.

"We're just really trying to get out there and talk to people about what we're doing, because we think it's really cool," Henrot said.

Brittany Adams, left, and Nicole Brown rest on the floor while listening to interim artistic director Zoe Henrot, background center, discuss choreography during rehearsal of "Clara's Dream" at their studio on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. (Pioneer Press: Chris Polydoroff)

This holiday season, St. Paul City Ballet is presenting "Clara's Dream," a selection of excerpts from the second act of "The Nutcracker." The show is one hour long, which Henrot hopes is long enough to keep even the youngest of ballet fans engaged without getting antsy. The company is putting on two versions of the production: one with a 25-person cast made up of the professional company and upper level students from the ballet's school, and a 40-person cast, which includes students as young as 6.

St. Paul City Ballet has been rehearsing for "Clara's Dream" since October, and with the added challenge of being an artist-led company, many dancers have spent so much time in the studio, it's become their second home, Henrot said.